


down my throat and it's a curse

by aerixlee



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, M/M, Minor Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Pre-Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Protective Iroh (Avatar), Sexual Harassment, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drinking, Zuko's Scar (Avatar), but it's still kinda there, by minor i mean super brief, canon compliant if you squint, it's just the ferry ride, nothing happens dw it's just a little creepy, romance is far from the main focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28605870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerixlee/pseuds/aerixlee
Summary: "Zuko’s grip loosens on the bottle. It falls into the water with a splash. He watches it sink beneath the waves.But he doesn’t move. He just keeps… staring.He’s not sure what he’s waiting for."---Zuko's encounters with alcohol, both good and bad, introduced to him by his crew and redefined by his experiences.(note: no alcoholism is depicted, mentioned, or even alluded to in this fic - it's just Zuko's experience with drinking and his feelings about it as time goes on)
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Jet/Zuko, Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 182





	down my throat and it's a curse

**Author's Note:**

> CW AT THE BOTTOM!! (it's mostly all in the tags, but just in case)
> 
> I started this intending for it to be a quick, 3k word thing meant just for myself, serving as both a vent piece and a way to explore Zuko and his crew a little bit (I'm definitely going to write a fic about that soon). It got ridiculously out of hand, and it's now 10k words, a character exploration of sorts, way beyond just his crew, and I'm publishing it? Which wasn't the goal setting out, but I've spent way too much time on this not to post it. You'll probably be able to tell how into it I got towards the middle.
> 
> Anyways. I haven't proofread this as much as I usually do, but I really hope that you all enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> (For the record, I don't really ship zukka lmao - I chose it because Sokka is closest to Zuko's age and therefore the best drinking buddy, and also because I needed someone to parallel with Jet in a romantic context. I'm not used to writing romance, so the inclusion of that was mostly practice for my own writing lmao. But I hope you enjoy regardless!)
> 
> Also, yes. Title is from Bubble Gum by Clairo. It's very on the nose. Shut up.
> 
> CW: drinking, sexual harassment, suicidal thoughts, past child abuse, violence (not super graphic) - pretty sure that that's it, but lmk if I missed something!

The first time that Zuko drinks, he is thirteen years old, and he has a bandage over his left side of his face. And he decides that he hates alcohol.

He’s walking past his crew, face screwed up in a scowl, and he stops dead in his tracks as one of the sailors shouts out to him. He’s immediately shushed, but five pairs of guilty eyes turn towards him, and he can’t exactly ignore that. He walks over to them, his frown deepening as he opens his mouth to tell them off for whatever they’re doing.

Instead, he finds a bottle being shoved into his hands.

“Here, Prince Zuko,” one of the crew members says, and Zuko thinks her name is Sana, but he can’t be sure. She says his title like everyone else - brief, clipped, as though they’re rushing over the words, saying it just as a formality, because everyone knows that he is no longer a prince. Not anymore. “Try this.”

“What,” says Zuko, the bottle held loosely in his right hand by the neck. The crew members chuckle, and it suddenly becomes clear to him that they’re all drunk. Dead wasted.

He’s never seen anyone this far gone before. Father would sometimes have whiskey after dinner, and Mother might take a little bit of wine with her food, but they never went this far.

He’s… a little disgusted, if he’s being honest.

“What’s wrong?” another crew member asks, raising his eyebrows. “Scared to try it?”

Zuko bristles. “I’m not _scared,_ ” he snaps, and that just elicits more laughter. He bristles even more.

“Then try it,” says Sana.

“No,” says Zuko, glaring.

“He’s scared, Kai,” Sana says, glancing across the table, and Zuko recognizes him as the youngest member of the crew, barely nineteen as opposed to the late thirties and forties, sometimes even fifties, of mostly everyone else. “Prince Zuko is scared of drinking a little alcohol.”

“I’m _not,_ ” insists Zuko.

“Then drink some,” says Kai, eyes twinkling. “What’s the harm?”

Zuko seethes for a moment.

“Fine."

There’s an awkward moment as he knocks back the little liquid left in the nearly empty bottle where everyone just stares, like they hadn’t expected him to actually do it.

Zuko pulls the bottle away and claps a hand to his mouth, eyes wide with horror. He feels a little like he’s going to puke.

Everyone at the table bursts out into laughter at his expression.

“That was _vile!_ ” Zuko says with disgust, shoving the bottle back into Sana’s hands. She’s laughing too hard to protest, slapping her knee. “I’m leaving!”

“Goodnight, Prince Zuko!” someone shouts at his turning back, and everyone starts laughing again. Zuko’s cheeks burn.

He throws up in the bathroom and vows never to drink again.

\---

Of course, that doesn’t happen.

He’s still thirteen the next time he drinks, except he’s very nearly fourteen, much angrier, and his bandage has come off. Every time they stop at a port for supplies, he can feel everyone staring at him, their eyes flicking from his scar to his good eye as they talk to him. Still, he holds his head up high and keeps his sentences brief and his tone terse. He keeps his pride, too, because his pride is all he has left.

Except there’s an elderly man at a port who tells Zuko, unprompted, about his son who went off to war, and he seems to think that that gives him the right to touch Zuko’s face.

Zuko shouts at him until Uncle pulls him away. He doesn’t shout at Uncle, because he still doesn’t know how similar he is to Father, but he falls into a seething silence that he hopes encapsulates exactly what his emotions are.

He locks himself in his quarters on the ship that night, pacing and occasionally setting something on fire while he curses to himself, reaching up every so often to brush his cheek, where his scar ends and his face begins, before dropping his hands in disgust and returning to his pacing.

He doesn’t cry. He refuses to.

He finally comes out late at night, when he’s certain that everyone will be asleep. He walks onto the deck, the salty ocean air ruffling his hair.

There are six people on the deck sipping alcohol from bottles.

“Prince Zuko!” one of them shouts, their words slightly slurred together. “Come and join us!”

“No, thank you,” he says shortly. He starts to turn back around when he feels a hand wrap around his arm. Zuko goes rigid, wrenching out of their grasp and backing up against the wall, holding his arm tightly.

It’s Kai.

Zuko’s fright melts back into anger, and he quickly straightens up, glowering at the man. Kai has an odd look on his face, but the expression vanishes as he offers his bottle, so full that he must have just opened it, to Zuko.

“No,” says Zuko flatly.

“You liked it last time,” Kai says.

“I hated it.”

“Well, you’re older now. You’re almost fourteen. You might like it better now.”

Zuko looks up, making eye contact with Kai, and he doesn’t miss the way that his eyes flick from his scar and back to the other side of his face.

In the end, that’s what does it for him.

Zuko snatches the bottle out of Kai’s hand and takes a sip. It’s still horribly foul, but he’s prepared for the taste this time, and he does nothing more than grimace as the alcohol goes down. There are cheers from the other five crew members as he shoves the bottle back to Kai, wiping his mouth.

“Aw, cheer up,” someone laughs from the table, and Zuko recognizes her to be Akane, one of the only crew members who actually knows how to play pai sho and therefore one of Uncle’s favorite people. “Let him keep the bottle, Kai. Agni knows that the kid deserves it.”

“I’m not a kid!"

“Sure you aren’t,” Akane says. “Come on, join us.”

“You sure his uncle won’t be mad?” Zuko hears someone mutter. Kai hands him the bottle again, and Zuko takes it from him, mostly just so his hands have something to do.

“What General Iroh doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” someone else says, chuckling a little - Sana. She raises her voice. “Come on, Prince Zuko.”

“No,” Zuko says, and he turns around on his heel, storming back in the direction of his quarters. The laughter that rings isn’t as mocking as last time. In fact, it feels a little warm.

Zuko almost regrets leaving as his door shuts behind him.

He takes a few sips from the bottle for the next few nights. Small ones. Just enough to taste until he can get used to it.

\---

The next time is when he’s fourteen, and he’s angrier than ever. His fear and grief has begun to manifest in the form of anger, and he’s taking it out on the crew in ways that angers him even more. Anger, anger, anger, anger. It’s all he has left, now.

“They will never respect you if you are like this,” Uncle tells him sternly one night. 

“I don’t want their respect,” Zuko says, which is a lie, and both he and Uncle know it. “I just want them to listen to me.”

“You cannot possibly command them without their respect,” says Uncle, and Zuko shoots a fireball into the sky just to shut him up.

That same night, there’s a mutiny on the ship.

Zuko wakes up when someone spits on his face.

Still bleary with sleep, he attempts to pull himself up, but it’s only when a hand grabs his hair that he realizes that there’s a knife to his neck and a leering man above him. He freezes instantly, eyes darting around the room.

There are seven crew members inside of his room, and all of them are unarmed. Which is worse than if they were holding weapons, because this means that they’re firebenders.

“I’ll make this quick, Prince Zuko,” the man above him sneers. “It’s more than you deserve, but I’m not a monster like you and your father are.”

“Let me go,” says Zuko, and he means for it to come out furious, but he says it too quietly, quietly enough that he sounds like a child.

“‘Let me go,’ he says,” the man laughs, and everyone else in the room laughs as well. “I don’t think we will, Prince Zuko. You won’t be getting out of here alive.”

“Make him beg,” a voice says on the other side of the room, and there’s more laughter.

“Beg for his life?” The man leans forward, and Zuko can feel his breath on his cheeks. He forces himself not to flinch, but he doesn’t think that he succeeds. “Very well. How would you like that, Prince Zuko? Some lost honor for your life?”

“I have no honor left,” Zuko says softly, barely a whisper. He glares up at the man. “I wouldn’t do this if I did.”

The man frowns. Zuko breathes fire in his face.

The man jumps back, screaming, and Zuko leaps up from the bed, grabbing his broadswords from the wall and whirling to face the remaining six crew members surrounding him. The man who’d spat on him is on the ground, clutching his face and writhing in pain, and Zuko feels a momentary twinge of horror and disgust with himself.

But there’s no time to dwell.

Zuko fights. He fights as best as he can, but there are six fully grown adults in the room, and he is a fourteen year old kid with limbs stiff from sleep and approximately zero depth perception. He takes down two people, but there are four remaining, and Zuko can’t possibly take them on like this. He’s panting, and his swords are slipping in his grip from the sweat on his palms.

He’s going to die here. For all of the thoughts that he’s had about doing it himself, he does not feel in the slightest bit okay with how it is happening now.

The door bursts open. Uncle stands in the doorway, eyes flashing and jaw set, and even though the expression isn’t directed at him, a thrill of terror rushes through Zuko. He understands, instantly, how this man was able to lay siege on Ba Sing Se for six hundred days.

It takes less than two minutes for Uncle to take down the remaining crewmates. Zuko blinks, and everyone is on the ground, unconscious.

He doesn’t realize that he’s fallen to the ground until Uncle is already there, a hand gripping his shoulder, and he pulls away before he really processes that there is no longer a threat to him. By that point, it’s too late to slip back beneath his hand.

Uncle takes him up to the deck, telling Lieutenant Jee to handle the men in his quarters. There’s enough steel in his words that Zuko doesn’t have any question of what Uncle means by that.

Zuko finds himself sitting with a small group of crewmates, a group including Kai, Sana, and Akane. There’s a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He’s too overwhelmed to even be angry about that.

“You alright, kid?” asks Akane gruffly. “You had quite the scare just now.”

Zuko doesn’t respond. He stares blankly ahead.

“Ah, let him be,” says another crew member. “He needs rest. General Iroh had him come over here so that we could watch him, not interrogate him.”

“I’m not interrogating him,” Akane snaps. She turns back to Zuko. “You want something to drink?”

Zuko blinks. He looks at her, expecting there to be a joking expression on her face as there was last time, but she is dead serious. Similar looks are on the rest of the group’s faces.

Slowly, Zuko nods.

“Alright,” Kai says, and there’s a bottle being pushed in front of him. Sana pops the top open for him, and Zuko takes it in his hands, holding it like it is a lifeline. This time, when he takes a careful sip, he doesn’t wince.

“Damn,” Sana whistles. “You been practicing?”

“Where the hell would he have gotten his hands on this shit?” Akane laughs. “I bet he just saved that bottle from last time and built up a tolerance to the taste.”

Zuko takes another sip, bigger this time, and relishes how the liquid burns in his throat. The sensation tugs him a little closer to reality.

“Thanks,” he rasps, and everyone falls silent. He realizes that they’re all staring at him, though for what, he can’t imagine. It can’t possibly be simply because of his thanks, could it?

“You’re welcome, Prince Zuko,” Kai says at last, smiling. When he says his title, it doesn’t sound like a mockery. Zuko isn’t sure when this shift occurred, but he finds that he quite likes it.

He takes another swig from the bottle and decides that he’s starting to like this, too.

\---

It’s a little different the next time it happens. It’s only a few weeks after the mutiny, the crew members involved having been dropped off at the nearest port and left with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and a thinly veiled death threat from Uncle if he ever saw them again. They’re at a different port now, and Zuko is wandering the area while his crew restocks on supplies.

He’s glancing at some fruits at a stall when the man approaches him.

“Hey there,” the man drawls, leaning against the stall beside Zuko. Zuko hardly spares him a glance as he gives one of the melons a vaguely longing look - they can’t afford to store fresh food on the ship anymore, not after the coolers started breaking every other week.

The man doesn’t like this.

“I’m talking to you,” he says, tapping the wood in front of Zuko. Zuko’s eye twitches ever so slightly. “Oi. Pretty boy. Look at me when I’m speaking.”

“Excuse me?” Zuko snaps, finally whirling to face the man. The man leers at him.

“You’re quite nice looking,” he says, eyes raking over Zuko’s body in an unnerving way. Zuko crosses his arms over his chest in a futile effort to draw attention away from himself. “I could do things to you, boy. Even with that scar of yours, you’re a good-looking thing.”

Zuko doesn’t like how he’s reacting to this man’s words. Any biting retorts he might’ve had are swallowed back in his closing throat, unable to find life while he’s under the man’s invasive gaze. The man is so much taller than him, so much bigger, and Zuko knows that, even despite his skill in combat, there is no way that he would be able to stop this man if he tried to do something to him. He doesn’t even know what that something would be, not really, but he knows that he won’t like it.

He tries for a glare. It’s a practiced enough expression that it lands fairly well, judging by the brief surprise that flickers over the man’s face. It’s quickly replaced by that smooth, predatory look again.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“None of your business,” Zuko retorts. He starts to walk away, but the man reaches out, hand catching Zuko’s arm in a firm, painful grip. Zuko tries to pull away, but he can’t. The man is too strong, too determined.

Panic starts to seep in. His eyes dart around the port, frantically searching for someone to make eye contact with, someone who’s seeing the predicament Zuko’s landed himself in, but he’s wandered too far from his ship to see any members of his crew. Except he doesn’t really know if he wants them to see them like this. Weak, vulnerable, _scared._

Zuko can get out of this alone, just like he does everything else.

“Old enough,” the man decides. Zuko takes this as a cue to try and yank himself away again, but the man merely grabs his wrist instead, nails digging into the delicate skin. Zuko freezes at the familiarity of the sensation.

“Let,” he says from between gritted teeth, “go of me.”

“Not until I have my ways with you,” the man says, smiling in a way that makes Zuko want to set something on fire or scream or _something._ “You look young enough that you haven’t had someone, eh? Don’t worry; I’ll--”

Whatever the man was about to say is cut off by a flash of fire that sends him stumbling back. Zuko quickly backs away, clutching his wrist, heart thumping so hard that he’s surprised it hasn’t bored a hole into his chest.

Uncle is standing there.

“Zuko,” he says quietly, his voice alarmingly steady, expression alarmingly blank. “Please go back to the ship. I’ll join you there shortly.”

Zuko doesn’t bother to protest, doesn’t bother to stay around any longer than he has to. He doesn’t even nod as he practically runs back to the ship, walking so fast that the only adjective that properly describes it is _fleeing._ He beelines for the ship, heart thudding so loudly that he’s surprised that no one else can hear it, because it’s starting to impact his own hearing.

“Where’s your uncle, Prince Zuko?” Lieutenant Jee calls out from the top of the ship’s ramp, glancing down at him curiously. He’s carrying a wooden crate, walking down from the ship.

“Um,” Zuko says, painfully aware of how breathless and panicked he sounds, and Jee’s eyebrows shoot up. Zuko quickly straightens his back, forcing what he hopes to be dismissive frustration into his voice as he glares. “He’s taking care of something. He’ll be back soon.”

Jee gives him another look, but he doesn’t question it as he nods briefly, continuing back down the ramp.

Zuko has never been so grateful for the disrespect of his crew.

He slows his half-run into something resembling a walk, trying not to think about anything, when an arm sticks out and Zuko finds himself face to face with Akane.

“You going somewhere?” she asks.

“No,” snaps Zuko, making to push past her, but Akane’s arm remains firmly in place.

“Since you’re not busy,” she says, like Zuko hadn’t just been speed-walking towards the ship moments earlier, “I have something for you, Prince Zuko.”

“What?” he asks tersely.

Akane gestures towards the crates beside her, and Zuko realizes that Sana is standing there as well, right next to a crew member named Hoshi. He waves at Zuko, who glowers back at him.

“Here,” says Akane brusquely, thrusting something cold and hard into Zuko’s hands. He looks down to see two bottles of sake, the glass clinking together in his grasp.

“Seriously?” Zuko finds himself asking, a derisive scoff escaping him. “You’re buying _alcohol_ with the money meant for supplies?”

“We’re a rowdy crew,” says Hoshi with a shrug, rubbing his bearded chin.

“I’m aware of that,” Zuko spits. He shoves the bottles back towards Akane. “You’re not bribing me into stopping this. I’m not--”

“We already got General Iroh’s permission,” Akane says with a wave of her hand. “Besides, you’re fourteen. You don’t get a say in what we can or can’t drink.”

“I’m still the captain of that ship,” snarls Zuko. “And I say--”

“Just take the damn bottles, Prince Zuko,” sighs Hoshi. “It’s not a bribe. It’s a gift.”

Akane hands the bottles back to him, all but forcing them into his hands. Zuko opens his mouth to protest, but then there’s a shout from behind him.

“Zuko!” Uncle calls. His eyes scan the port.

“Fuck,” mutters Zuko under his breath, looking down at the bottles. He glances back at Akane and Hoshi with desperation, a pleading look in his eyes, but they just shrug at him. They look a little amused at the uncharacteristic expression on his face. With nothing else to do, Zuko shoves the bottles into his bag and makes a rude gesture at Akane and Hoshi, both of whom smile widely at him.

“Over here, Uncle,” Zuko shouts back, waving his hand. He turns to glare at Akane and Hoshi one last time before walking over to Uncle.

“Are you alright?” asks Uncle urgently, grasping his arms firmly. “That man didn’t--”

“No,” says Zuko quickly, shaking his head. “He didn’t.”

 _And I don’t want to think about it anymore_ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t, because that would make him sound weak. Uncle seems to get the message, though, because he puts a hand on Zuko’s shoulder and nods, the fire in his eyes as strong as it had been when he’d confronted the man. But his mouth is a soft, smiling line that betrays nothing, so Zuko allows himself to be guided back to the ship, Uncle’s light, meaningless chatter filling up the void floating about in Zuko’s head.

When he gets back to his room, long after the ship has set sail once more, he slips the two bottles out of the bag and sets them on the ground by his feet. He stares at them both for a long moment, pondering.

Before he can overthink it, he cracks one of the bottles open and takes a sip. Just like it had before, it burns, and Zuko allows himself to make a face with no one there to see. But the burn helps him take his mind off of what happened at the port, so he takes another sip. Just one more.

Of course, that’s the exact moment that Uncle decides to walk into the room.

Zuko barely manages to close the bottle and roll them both beneath his bed, his Uncle’s heavy footsteps the only warning he gets until the gentle, familiar knock raps at the metal door.

“Go away,” Zuko snaps, lying down to feign sleep (even though he hasn’t even changed yet, and everyone on this boat knows that he hardly ever sleeps anyways). Uncle, as always, ignores him, and the door opens.

“Prince Zuko,” he says quietly, the door shutting behind him. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” says Zuko stiffly. “You already asked that. Go away.”

Uncle, again, ignores him, and instead pulls a chair to sit beside Zuko’s bed. It’s so achingly familiar to how it was when he’d just been burned, when he’d wake up in those weird, swimming bouts of consciousness where everything was slightly blurry and the world spun around him, and Uncle would always be sitting beside his bed, that Zuko doesn’t even protest.

“I’ll be sticking to your side when we go to ports from now on,” says Uncle. “I don’t want something like this happening to you again.”

“I can defend--”

“I know you can,” Uncle says heavily. “But… for me, Prince Zuko. For my ease of mind.”

Zuko falls silent. He doesn’t look at Uncle, doesn’t want to know what expression he’s wearing.

“Okay,” he says at last, in a voice that’s much too small, too soft, too timid, to be his own, but Uncle heaves a weary sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” he says. “Akane and I are going to play a game of pai sho. Do you care to join us?”

“No,” Zuko says, just like he always does. Uncle makes a big show of trying to persuade him, as always, and Zuko responds with clipped sentences that slowly escalate in volume and frustration until they’re back to where they always are, no longer in that weird hesitation from earlier.

When Uncle leaves the room at last, Zuko fishes the bottles out from underneath his bed and stores them safely in the drawer by his desk.

\---

The last time that he drinks with his crew is when he’s fifteen.

They don’t like him. That much is clear. Akane, Sana, and Kai are always friendly to him, even when he’s shouting, and Hoshi seems to make an effort sometimes, but everyone else is downright hostile. And none of them actually try to do their jobs properly, and Zuko knows that it’s just to upset him further, but he can’t help falling for it every single time.

At least it takes his mind off of things. Like the Avatar.

He knows, he knows, he _knows_ how impossible of a task this is, but Zuko is determined to complete it. Father wants him back. He knows that he does. Why else would he have given him a mission to complete in the first place? No, Father wants him back, and he’ll be restored to his position at his right hand soon.

Soon.

_Soon._

He has a nightmare that night, the one that he’s gotten nearly every night since the Agni Kai. Father’s hand, the brief hope that he would comfort him with a tender cupping of his cheek, and the flash of indescribable pain that followed. He wakes up in a cold sweat and does what he does every night after these nightmares. He goes to the deck for fresh air.

Except he’s not the only one there this time.

It’s not just Akane, Kai, and Sana this time. No, this time, it’s what appears to be nearly the entire crew, laughing and drinking together in the flickering torchlight. Uncle is nowhere in sight, but he’s never been the type for these kinds of things, anyways.

And they’re all wasted. Because of course they are. Why wouldn’t they be?

He goes over to the far corner of the deck, hoping that no one will notice his presence or the trembling of his hands, leftover from his nightmare, but he has never been that lucky.

“Prince Zuko!” someone shouts, someone clearly inebriated and too far gone to care about the slurring of his words. “Come and join us!”

“No,” he says flatly, turning away from them. He’s tempted to go back to his room, now, but he just got out here, and he doesn’t like the idea of turning right back the way that he came now that everyone knows he’s here.

But then everyone’s shouting, fucking _shouting_ at him to _come join us_ and _just have a drink, it’s not that big of a deal_ and _your uncle won’t have to find out_ , and why does everyone always bring up Uncle? He doesn’t need his protection.

He’s not really sure how, but he ends up squashed in between Kai and Hoshi, a bottle in his hands. He doesn’t hesitate, this time, and takes a long drag from the bottle without flinching that has everyone but Kai, Sana, and Akane gaping in surprise. Then there’s a long bout of raucous laughter, and conversation resumes like nothing happened.

Maybe it’s the noise. Maybe it was the nightmare. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s surrounded by a crew that looks down on him, floating in the middle of the ocean on a decommissioned Fire Nation warship in the middle of the night, and there’s alcohol being passed around freely, and he’s fifteen years old with a bunch of adults and the shittiest adult supervision in the world, and maybe it’s because he’s so fucking tired, and his hands won’t stop shaking, and the fire from the torches is just a little too bright.

Maybe it’s because he needs something to hold onto while the world spins around him.

But whatever it is, Zuko drinks more than he ever has in his entire life.

He drinks a lot.

Like. A _lot_. So much, in fact, that he doesn’t remember anything past the second bottle shoved into his hands. He thinks he starts to fall asleep at one point, but everyone’s laughter wakes him up, and he hears Kai saying something reproachful to another crew member.

“--had enough; I’m taking him back to his quarters.”

“He’s not even doing anything, Kai. He’s just sitting there, calmer than I’ve ever seen him. Don’t you think the kid deserves to rest?”

“Yeah, he does. But he’s fifteen fucking years old, Ryo, and this isn’t the kind of rest that he needs. He’s had far too much. I don’t like that blank look in his eyes. I didn’t think he’d go this far, and I think it’s time for him to go.”

 _Too loud,_ Zuko thinks to himself as he pushes himself to his feet, extracting himself from between Kai and Hoshi without either of them noticing. _Too loud._

He stumbles away from the group, away from the torchlights, and finds himself leaning heavily against the edge of the ship. There’s a half-empty bottle in his hands, and he takes a sip just for the sake of it.

Ha. _Sake._

Zuko looks down at the water below, at the churning waves crashing against the sides of the metal ship. He slumps forward, leaning a little too far, but he can’t quite bring himself to care.

What would happen if he just… let go?

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about this before. He practically _wallows_ in self-loathing at every waking moment, and there’s always that small, quiet thought in the back of his head that looks at the swords on his wall or the knife beside his bed, the one that says, _it would be so easy to end it all._ He’s overly reckless for a reason. It’s not just because of teenage stupidity.

No more Avatar. No more aching. No more scar. No more of that heart-stopping panic that always manages to stab in his chest when he summons fire. No more, no more, no more.

It would be more honorable to do it in the stomach, the traditional way of a soldier. But he’s not a soldier, not really, and the one thing that has always stopped him from doing it in the first place is the knowledge that someone would have to handle his body. That Uncle would mourn him, even if he would only mourn because Zuko was supposed to be his replacement son.

He forgets all of the reasons that he hasn’t done it. Here, in this moment, he can’t think of a single good reason _not_ to do it. It’s the perfect solution, so perfect that he can’t believe that he didn’t do it sooner. Because the ocean would swallow his body. Because he’s already here, anyways. Because he’s tired, has been for years, even before his banishment, maybe since the first time Father laid a hand on him, and he really just wants to sleep, and it would be so easy to let himself fall.

Zuko’s grip loosens on the bottle. It falls into the water with a splash. He watches it sink beneath the waves.

But he doesn’t move. He just keeps… staring.

He’s not sure what he’s waiting for.

He stands there for so long, lost in thought, that he doesn’t notice when everyone falls silent.

He flinches when two warm, dry, calloused hands find his shoulders, but he doesn’t look away from the waves. The hands don’t withdraw, though, and Zuko finds himself sinking a little into the gentleness of the grip. When was the last time he’d been touched like this? When was the last time that he _allowed_ himself to be touched like this?

“Zuko,” says a soft, painfully soft voice. “How are you feeling?”

Zuko’s eyes flutter shut, but all he can see is the ocean below.

“Tired,” he thinks he says, because the voice isn’t from the person whose hands are on his shoulders, and he’s the only other person it could be coming from. “Tired of… fighting. Tired.”

Vaguely, something in him registers that the entire ship, still filled with intoxicated crew members, is completely silent. He doesn’t think it matters, though, because the person behind him doesn’t say anything about it. Maybe he’s imagining it.

“What do you mean?” the soft voice asks, and there’s a slight hint of panic in there.

“Don’t want to do this,” Zuko mumbles. His eyes open, and the ocean is still there. “I could… I keep thinking that it would be easier. To just… let it all stop.”

There’s a sharp inhale of breath. “Zuko,” says the voice, still achingly soft, tender, quiet, but there’s a steel in there that wasn’t there before. “Nephew, I’m going to take you back to your room now. Will you allow me to support your weight?”

Zuko doesn’t respond. He keeps watching the waves, listening to the sounds of water on the metal walls of the ship.

“I--” Zuko breaks off, swallowing. “Father-- Father doesn’t want me back, does he?”

The silence pounds in his ears. The grip on his shoulders hurts a little, now, but he finds that he doesn’t really mind it.

He doesn’t know if he quite believes that Father doesn’t want him back, but it comes out anyways, and it comes out so raw and genuine that it scares him. It’s a thought he’s never voiced aloud before, and that alone makes him realize that he isn’t going to remember a damn thing about this night. It’s like he no longer has a filter on his words, like thoughts are going straight from his brain to his lips, and he’s always been so _careful_ about what he says that he wonders, really, how truthful he’s been up until this moment.

But, despite this, he still doesn’t cry.

“You know,” he says, because now that he knows that he can’t stop himself, he doesn’t make an effort to even try, “he-- he used to hurt me. Before the Agni Kai, I mean. It’s why I keep flinching around everyone. Which is stupid, because I know I deserved everything I got, but I can’t help it.”

He swallows again. He sorely wishes that he had the bottle back in his hands, because his mouth suddenly feels so dry. “I want to go home,” he whispers hoarsely. “But I’m-- I’m so tired. I can’t-- I _refuse_ to give up hope, but I’m… I’m tired.”

The silence hurts.

“I don’t think you want to discuss this right now, my nephew,” the voice says at last.

“Yeah,” says Zuko. He closes his eyes again, takes a deep breath as his head drops. “I don’t think so, either.”

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring at the ocean, but the person with the warm hands and the soft voice stays there for as long as he does.

\---

They don’t offer him alcohol after that. Ever.

Zuko doesn’t remember a single thing about that night, doesn’t even remember going on deck after that nightmare, but he knows that he must’ve done _something_ , because everyone is treating him like he’s made of glass.

So he lashes out. Gets angrier than he has ever been before. He distances himself from everyone, including those crew members that had shown him so much kindness, so much affection, and he can’t help but think that it’s probably for the best.

 _Father wants me back,_ he tells himself, standing at the edge of the ship with his eyes on the horizon, completely unaware of Uncle watching him carefully from the doorway. _He wants me back. He wants me back. He wants me back._

 _If he wanted you back,_ a traitorous voice whispers, _wouldn’t he have already sent for you by now?_

\---

He’s sixteen the next time that he drinks, and this time, he has two wanted posters. Prince Zuko, banished prince and traitor to the throne, and the Blue Spirit, vigilante fighter. He hates them both with a passion.

He’s on a ship again, this one headed for Ba Sing Se. He’d find it hilarious if he wasn’t in such a terrible mood, hadn’t done so much and gone so far only for Father to have essentially cast him out yet all over again, wasn’t so hungry and sick of eating the same rotting food every fucking day--

There’s a boy with sunkissed skin, arched eyebrows, brown hair, a stick of grass in his mouth, and a smooth voice, flanked by a silent boy and a loud girl. He asks Zuko if he wants to steal food with him.

It’s not even a question. More of a statement than anything else. The slight crookedness of his smirk and the glint in his eyes, both charming in a way that they shouldn’t be, tells Zuko that this boy knows his answer before he even knows it himself.

Jet. His name is Jet.

It suits him.

Zuko would be lying if he said that he wasn’t showing off with his swords during their… adventure. He doesn’t smile when Jet’s lip quirks up at the action, but he does allow himself a brief rush of pride. It goes straight to his chest, squeezing something deep beneath his ribcage.

They hand out food to the refugees on the ship, and it’s an oddly satisfying task. Jet seems more in his element here than he had when they were sneaking around, and Zuko can’t help but marvel at how easily he gets these people to laugh, how quickly their smiles come and their eyes brighten despite the bags beneath their eyes, the weariness hunching their shoulders and weighing on their backs.

He’s a little surprised when Jet pulls him away from where they sit with Uncle. Not unpleasantly so, just… surprised that he still wants anything to do with him. He’s less surprised and more panicked, that cold panic that still seizes him sometimes in the middle of the night because he still can’t forget that mutiny that happened when he was fourteen, when Jet mentions his scar.

He’s _very_ surprised when he turns his head to look at Jet and he’s _right there_ , so close that he can feel his breath on his cheeks.

But, again. Not unpleasantly so.

He’s definitely surprised when Jet leans forward, closing the gap between them. But maybe he shouldn’t have been.

Stupidly, the first thing that pops into his head when Jet’s lips press against his is: _Spirits, Father would be so fucking pissed if he could see me._

For the first time in his entire life, he finds that he doesn’t give a shit.

It’s nothing like his kisses with Mai. But Jet is so different from her, the circumstances so wildly clashing, that he isn’t sure that he can really compare the two. This is more wild, more desperate, like they’re both doing it to cling to reality rather than to cling to each other, and Zuko doesn’t really mind that. He finds himself pinned to the wall at some point (when did that happen?), and his head thuds back against the wall as Jet’s lips find his neck.

They finally break apart after what feels like hours, days, years. Jet pulls out a bottle.

“This is why I asked you to follow me,” he says, his voice somehow still steady despite his breathlessness. He smiles. “The kiss was nice, too.”

“Thanks,” Zuko says sarcastically, except maybe he’s smiling a little bit, too. Jet’s eyes flick over his flushed cheeks and red lips, and his own smile widens.

They drink, sharing the bottle between them. Their lips find each other a little more often than they do the bottle.

It ends badly, of course, with Jet being pulled away by the Dai Li, screaming about them being firebenders, and Zuko standing there with a pair of swords in front of a rundown tea shop in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se.

That Jet hates firebenders isn’t a surprise. But the fact that people actually believe Zuko instead of Jet is.

Zuko remembers the taste of alcohol and the press of soft lips against his, and he walks back into the teashop without a second glance over his shoulder. 

\---

He’s still in Ba Sing Se when he steals a bottle of soju from an oblivious merchant and climbs up to the roof with it. He uses his knife to pry the bottle open, tossing the cap aside somewhere.

He takes a sip, closing his eyes as the taste floods his mouth.

He likes the roof. He always has. He liked it even when Azula would push him off because she thought it was funny, liked it for the thrill and the height and the way the world looked from the top. Like he could go anywhere if he wanted, do anything at all.

He likes it for a different reason, now. His legs dangle off the edge, feet swinging carelessly as he takes a lazy sip from the bottle, not bothering to steady himself as he sets it behind him to look out at the glimmering city before him.

He won’t let himself fall. Uncle would have to deal with him, then, and he doesn’t want to die in Ba Sing Se of all places. Uncle lost his son here. He won’t let him lose a nephew, too.

But he keeps close to the edge. Maybe he likes the idea that he _could_ fall if he wanted to, if his reflexes weren’t as fast as they are or if he just felt like ending it all right there.

He doesn’t jump. But he doesn’t move away, either.

He finishes the bottle of soju, letting it roll away from him as he stands up and starts back towards the apartment.

\---

The next time that Zuko drinks, he is back in the palace with everything that he has ever wanted restored to him. His honor, his home, his crown.

He drinks.

He’s at some celebration, some party that’s being held for a bunch of nobles, and as the Crown Prince, Zuko is obligated to _mingle_. Azula has a better time at this than he does, and he can catch her glances cutting in his direction every so often, something like concern in her eyes. He’d say it was concern, at least, if he didn’t know any better, but she looks away whenever he manages to catch her eye, so he’s really not sure.

He keeps drinking.

He’s beneath the Fire Nation’s drinking age, but he’s the Crown Prince, and it’s not like the people here are going to care when they’re all drunk on their feet, anyways. So he snags a bottle of sake from the back, cracks it open just like he did on those dark nights on his ship, and gulps down the familiar taste. When his lips pull away from the bottle, he’s smiling slightly.

He goes back to the party with a little more warmth, an easier smile on his face, the cold stiffness gone from his shoulders. He takes sips from the bottle when he thinks that no one is looking, except he can feel Azula’s eyes on him the entire time. Watching.

He doesn’t really care until she’s yanking him out of the room.

“Hey, ‘Zula,” says Zuko, smiling. He’s swaying just a little on his feet. “You’re… kind of short. Were you always that short?”

Azula rolls her eyes. “You’re drunk,” she says flatly. “Why are you drunk? You’re better than this, Zuko.”

“Not really,” says Zuko, shrugging. “I’m… tired. _Really_ tired. I thought I’d stop being tired after I came home, but I’m still… so fucking tired.”

Azula sighs, and something in the back of his head registers how unfamiliar her expression is. Worried, almost.

“I worked so hard to get you back,” she mutters under her breath. “You’re screwing it all up.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Azula says sharply, looking back up at him. “I’ll cover for you. Go back to your room and rest.”

“I’m fine, ‘Zula,” Zuko drawls, throwing his head back. He offers the bottle to her. “You want some?”

Azula wrinkles her nose. “No,” she says. “It smells foul. How on earth did you manage to develop a tolerance to this?”

“The fucking ship,” says Zuko, because it’s obvious.

“Is that where you started cursing, too?”

“Obviously. Lived with sailors for, like, two years. Thought you were smart, ‘Zula.”

Azula’s lips press together in clear annoyance. “Go to your room,” she says. “If Father finds you like this, he’s not going to be happy.”

“Since when did _you_ care about what Father thought about me?”

Azula looks at him, and there’s something in her expression that gives even heavily-intoxicated-Zuko pause. He doesn’t have the time or the brain capacity to parse through it at the moment, however, and it’s replaced by that familiar cold indifference that he’s used to before he can look carefully.

“If you want to get on his bad side again, fine,” she says smoothly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But I’ll cover for you, regardless of what decision you make.”

She starts to turn away, but pauses before she can take a step forward. She turns back around to look at Zuko full in the face, eyebrows drawn in.

“I don’t understand you,” she says. “You have everything that you’ve ever wanted. You have your crown, your honor, your family. You’re _home._ What’s holding you back? Why are you like this?”

“Uncle.”

The word falls so readily from his lips that it’s almost like he’s been waiting for her to ask him this entire time. But it isn’t quite right. It’s not just Uncle, no; there’s something else. Something that feels _wrong,_ like a drawer that doesn’t slide in all the way or a slight unevenness in a wooden floor.

 _Uncle_ is probably a good place to leave it. It’s accurate, at least.

Azula scoffs, expression dropping like he’s disappointed her, somehow, except that’s not quite right, either. “You’re pathetic,” she says. “I’m leaving. Enjoy yourself. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

“I know.”

Azula pauses one last time as she turns back around, hesitating. But then she sets her shoulders and starts walking back down the hallway, back to where a room full of nobles and ministers talk and laugh and drink together, not looking back at Zuko once.

Zuko goes up to the roof. He finishes the bottle up there and pretends that he's back in Ba Sing Se, overlooking an impenetrable city glimmering with light in the darkness.

\--

It’s weeks before he even sees another bottle of alcohol again, long after the Day of Black Sun.

Ember Island.

He’s with the Avatar and his friends on Ember fucking Island at his family’s old vacation home. He never thought he’d be back at this place, not after the last time he came here. Especially not with the _Avatar,_ of all people.

Spirits. Fucking _spirits._ The Ember Island Players themselves couldn’t have come up with a better idea if they tried.

How did it come to this? Not that he’s complaining. They’re the best (the only real) friends that he’s ever had. He’s just… confused.

Whatever.

They have about a week and a half until Sozin’s Comet, and Zuko is wandering the house. Everyone else is already in bed given the late hour.

Zuko’s footsteps send clouds of dust into the air. He’s wearing a pair of pants and a tunic he pulled out from a closet somewhere, small enough that he’s certain it wasn’t Ozai’s but big enough that it fits him. Maybe it was Lu Ten’s (Zuko hopes it wasn’t), maybe just some spare clothes they kept for guests. But the fabric is soft, airy, light, and it suits the hot summer air, so he doesn’t think about it too much. He’s not sweating, at least, as he walks down the hallway.

He’s not really sure where he’s headed until his feet are carrying him down the stairs into the cellar beneath the house. The wine cellar.

It’s not that Zuko wasn’t _allowed_ down here. It’s more so that Mother told both him and Azula to steer clear of the area so that Fa-- so that Ozai wouldn’t have to _tell_ them that they weren’t allowed down there.

The wooden steps creak beneath him as he descends into darkness. He debates summoning a flame in his palm but decides against it just in case he trips and accidentally sets the whole house on fire. Still, there’s just enough moonlight from the window behind him that he can see a set of footprints in the thick layer of dust on the steps.

Someone’s down here.

Zuko walks further into the cellar, navigating around shelves of glass bottles dusted with a layer of grey, being careful not to make a single sound as he follows the footsteps as best as he can. His eyes snag on a figure leaning against the wall by one of the tiny windows, silvery moonlight streaming in, and Zuko lunges forward, a flame bursting to life in his hand at the same moment that he moves, and--

“Sokka?”

Sokka starts violently, almost upending the shelf beside him. He blinks a few times, squinting in the warm light from the fire in Zuko’s hand, then smiles weakly at the sight of him.

“Hi,” he says. “Uh, sorry. I was exploring. Guess I fell asleep.”

“It’s okay.”

Zuko stands there awkwardly as Sokka yawns, stretching his arms above his head. He gives Zuko a sleepy smile.

“Wine cellar, huh?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows. “You’ve been holding out on us.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, taking the quip as an invitation to sit down. He keeps the fire in his hand going, the orange light flickering off of Sokka’s face. “It’s my first time coming down here,” he says. “I didn’t know that any of this was still down here. I thought Mother would’ve had it cleared out before we left.”

 _Though,_ Zuko supposes, _she probably wouldn’t have known that our last time here would be the last._

“Do you want some?” asks Zuko, before he can change his mind. Sokka’s expression lights up.

“Do I want to drink from the Fire Lord’s liquor stash in his abandoned vacation home?” Sokka grins. “You didn’t even need to ask.”

Apparently, it’s not just a wine cellar, because they end up finding crates of soju, sake, whiskey, and something else that neither of them want to try. They end up sitting beneath the window together, Sokka taking alternate sips between two bottles of wine and a bottle of whiskey and complaining the entire time about the clashing tastes (though he doesn’t stop drinking any of them), and Zuko savoring a bottle of soju. They start off whispering, not wanting to wake anyone up, but their voices grow louder the more that they drink. Soon, Sokka is giggling to himself for no reason at all, and Zuko is starting to feel the effects of the alcohol himself.

It turns out that being able to tolerate the taste of alcohol is not the same as having a good tolerance.

“You know,” Sokka says, taking a swig from the whiskey bottle, “this tastes like-- like actual shit. Like, _actual_ shit. Not that I would know. But it tastes like-- like shit.”

“I think you said that,” says Zuko.

“Yeah, well I’m saying it again. It’s fucking-- fucking horrible.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, resting his head on his knees. Sokka does the same. They’re both looking at each other.

“Is this weird for you?” asks Sokka suddenly. He puts down the whiskey and picks up one of the wine bottles. “Being back at this house, I mean.”

“Yeah,” says Zuko. He’s not sure when, but he extinguished the flame in his palm some time ago, leaving the only light on the two of them the pale shine of the moon from the window, washing them both in silver. It makes Sokka look like he’s glowing a little bit, and Zuko shakes his head to chase the thought away.

 _Careful,_ the still-rational part of his brain warns. Drunk-Zuko agrees and then promptly forgets the warning.

“I used to love it here,” he says. He knows he wouldn’t be saying a damn word about any of this if he were sober, and maybe Sokka understands that even through the haze of alcohol, because he’s unusually silent, watching Zuko. “I’d look forward to it every summer. It wasn’t-- I thought it was okay. Good, even, when we were here. But we stopped coming after Mother fucking-- fucking left. And I realized it was never good here. She was just… keeping the bad away from us.”

“You and Azula?” asks Sokka.

“Yeah.”

Zuko tips back the bottle of soju, suddenly hyper-aware of how vulnerable he feels, and makes a face when he feels a single drop fall down his throat. He tilts his head back down, glaring at the bottle. Sokka snickers at him.

“Fuck,” Zuko mutters. “I don’t want to get another bottle.”

“Here,” says Sokka, offering him the bottle of wine in his hands. Zuko glances at it, blinking a few times, then looks back at Sokka.

“You sure--”

“If you leave,” Sokka says very seriously, “I don’t know if you’ll be coming back here. You’re kinda flighty? And this is the most I’ve ever heard you talk before, and I’m kinda realizing that I know literally nothing about you. So. Stay.”

Zuko blinks a few more times, staring. Sokka stares back. There’s something familiar in Sokka’s eyes, that hard look that he’ll sometimes get when they’re sparring together, the one that tells Zuko just how determined he is. Zuko smiles a little.

“Alright,” he says.

He takes the bottle from Sokka and takes a sip, lips touching the rim of the bottle as he swallows. He can feel Sokka watching him as he wipes his mouth, handing the bottle back to him.

“Damn,” he says, grimacing. “I definitely liked the soju better. Can wine expire?”

“Isn’t that, like, the point of alcohol?”

Sokka takes a sip from the bottle as well, and Zuko is very, very aware of the fact that his lips had just been on the same place that Sokka’s are right now. He forces himself to tear his eyes away, but not before he catches the bob of his throat, and the furrow of his eyebrows as the liquid goes down.

“Shit,” Sokka mutters. “Tastes like _shit._ ”

“I thought that that was the whiskey.”

“Multiple things can taste like shit, jerkbender. And this? This tastes like shit.”

Sokka passes the bottle back to Zuko. Zuko takes it and drinks.

“You’ve got a dirtier mouth than me,” he says, once a few moments of silence pass. “I practically grew up with sailors. Thought I’d have the worst mouth out of everyone here.”

“Toph does,” says Sokka. “And you’re definitely right after her. This wine just tastes like shit, and I’d like to proclaim that fact to the world. That’s all.”

“Why are you even drinking from three bottles of alcohol? What made you think that that would be a good idea?”

“I don’t know! But I don’t want to waste it now.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, shoving the wine in his hands back into Sokka’s. “Let’s just share this,” he says. “We can save the other two for another time.”

“Another time?”

Zuko flushes, realizing his mistake. “Only if you want to.”

“Aww.” Sokka nudges Zuko with his knee, grinning. “You like me.”

“No. You’re annoying.”

“You think I’m cool,” Sokka insists. “Come on. Don’t be shy.”

“Fuck you.”

Sokka laughs, loud and unrestrained. His thigh is pressed against Zuko’s, and he thinks that maybe he doesn’t notice. But no, he definitely does, because his eyes flick down to where their legs are touching and then back up to meet Zuko’s eyes. Zuko doesn’t look away fast enough, so he ends up locked in Sokka’s gaze for what can’t be more than two seconds but feels like an eternity.

They both look away at the same time, Sokka softly clearing his throat and Zuko doing his best to convince himself that the heat in his cheeks is because of the alcohol. Nothing else.

Except, then:

“Suki and I broke up,” Sokka blurts out abruptly, and Zuko looks back at him, frowning. “I, uh. On the warship. When we were flying back from Boiling Rock.”

“Oh,” Zuko says. “I’m, uh. Sorry?”

Sokka shrugs. “Nah, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Neither of us felt like anything was really happening anymore. I just thought you should know. War just… speeds things up a little, you know?”

“Yeah,” says Zuko. He feels like he should say something too, so he opens his mouth to ask for the bottle or something, but what comes out instead is, “Mai is dating Ty Lee.”

Sokka stares, gaping. “Knife girl and circus freak?” he asks. “Seriously?”

“That’s what Mai told me at Boiling Rock,” Zuko says, shrugging. “Pass the bottle.”

Sokka’s mouth stays open, but he passes the bottle to him regardless. Zuko takes it, taking more than a few sips from it. He grimaces slightly at the taste as his lips pull away from the bottle.

“Are you upset about it?” Sokka asks a little bewilderedly. He’s watching Zuko with something weird in his eyes, and Zuko isn’t sure that he wants to look over and pinpoint exactly what it is. He isn’t sure he’d be able to with how fuzzy his mind feels from the wine and the soju. “I mean, weren’t you dating Mai?”

“We were kids when we dated,” says Zuko. “And it wasn’t ‘dating’ in the sense that dating really is. We tried again after I got back to the palace, but it didn’t work out. We’ve been over each other for years. Besides, Ty Lee is really good for her. I thought they were together when I went back to the palace.”

“Oh,” says Sokka, and that weird look in his eyes has somehow managed to creep down into his voice, now, too. “That’s… good?”

“Yep.” Zuko sips from the bottle again, then hands it back to Sokka. Sokka doesn’t drink from it, though, instead frowning down at the lip of the bottle like it holds all of the secrets to the universe in it.

“Can I ask you something?” Sokka says quietly.

“Sure.”

Sokka doesn’t say anything. When the silence gets to be unbearable, Zuko looks at him questioningly. They make eye contact, blue meeting gold, and Sokka straightens up as though struck, panic flooding his features.

“I, uh,” he says quickly. “We should… We should spar! We should spar sometime!”

Zuko raises an eyebrow. “We _have_ been sparring,” he says, not bothering to conceal the amusement in his tone. He feels warm from the alcohol, a little lighter than usual, like the tension has been completely released from him.

“Yeah, I know,” Sokka says, waving a hand in the air. “But we haven’t sparred _here_ yet. Besides, there are way more places to take advantage of the terrain out here than there were back at the temple.”

Zuko eyes Sokka for a moment, certain that that wasn’t what he was going to say, but then shrugs. He takes the bottle back from Sokka and finds that there’s only a little bit left at the bottom, so he drains it. He thinks he feels Sokka’s eyes on him, but as he sets the bottle back down and looks, his gaze is trained on the whiskey bottle.

It’s definitely the alcohol, but Zuko gets the inexplicable urge to break the silence.

“I don’t think I’m ready for someone else,” he says, and his words, despite being soft and almost a whisper, ring out in the quiet. “Romantically, I mean. If we lose against Ozai…”

“Let’s not talk about that part,” Sokka says quickly. Zuko nods.

“Right,” he says. “But, uh. I think you’re right. It’s not really… the time to be dating people right now. During a war, I mean.”

He doesn’t know why he says it, but there’s something about the way the moonlight bathes Sokka’s features, something about how his cheeks are tinged slightly pink from the wine, something about the way that their legs are touching and how they’re sitting so close despite being the only people in the cellar. And Zuko knows, in this instant, that this will probably be gone tomorrow morning.

Maybe that’s why he says it. Because he’s drunk. Because maybe he hopes that, maybe, tomorrow morning, it won’t be gone. That it’ll still be there, soft as it is right now, even without the edges blurred from the alcohol and the darkness surrounding them. That it’ll hold up under the sun.

Maybe.

“You’re right,” says Sokka. “I get it. It’d be a distraction.”

“Yeah.”

“But… later? If we-- _When_ we win. Would you-- be open to that?”

He says it with a false nonchalance, and Zuko knows Sokka’s tones well enough to tell that he’s not asking for the sake of asking. He’s curious.

Zuko turns his head to look at Sokka and finds that he’s… close. Close enough that he can see every eyelash, every tiny freckle, can pinpoint where the color of his eyes shifts from a sky blue to something more like the ocean when it hits the sunlight just right.

“Yeah,” says Zuko. He doesn’t break eye contact. “I would.”

They sit there, looking at each other, for a long moment.

“Okay,” says Sokka. “That’s-- that’s good. I’m glad. I, uh. Me, too. I’d be open to that.”

The corner of Zuko’s lip twitches into something like a smile. “Good,” he says.

Sokka offers him the bottle of whiskey, and Zuko takes it from him. He tilts his head back, taking a careful sip, and makes a face, coughing.

“What the f--”

“I told you!” shouts Sokka, jumping up to his feet. “It tastes like--”

“Like complete and utter shit,” Zuko agrees, wiping his mouth. “What the _fuck?_ No wonder Father liked this.”

“Ozai likes whiskey?”

“Drank it all the time.”

There’s a pause in which Zuko wonders if he's said a little too much about the Fire Lord for Sokka’s taste. Then:

“No wonder he’s such a shitty guy.”

Zuko snorts, barely managing to cover his mouth in time. But the sound has escaped him, and Sokka’s laughing, too, and he removes his hand from his mouth, grinning widely.

The tension from the previous moment is gone, replaced with this easy laughter, the kind that comes to Sokka like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and Zuko’s laughing, too, in the way that he’s not allowed himself to since he was a kid. Uninhibited. Free.

Joyous.

Zuko’s lips meet the edge of the other wine bottle, and he decides that _this_ is how drinking should feel like. Not like all of those instances with his crew, even if their company was alright, sometimes. He’s not settling, this time, and he’s... he’s not angry anymore.

He thinks he likes this.

He thinks he likes it a lot.

\---

And when the war ends, when they're all draped over each other in one of the guest rooms in the palace, exhausted and relieved and completely drained, Suki with an arm around Aang and Katara, Toph snuggled up against Katara's side, and Zuko with his head resting on Sokka's arm, the room full of quiet snores and soft breathing, he thinks that he likes where he's ended up, too.

He's drunk on his own happiness. And it tastes good.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I can't write endings for shit. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Leave a comment and lmk if you did :)
> 
> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://aerixlee.tumblr.com/) <3


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